My quilty friend and I first learned from a traditional quilt maker... cutting each piece from a template, hand stitching... We made 4 blocks: 9-patch, churn dash, great hope and rail fence... I made a table runner out of mine... of course, it's too long for my round table, so it is draped over the back of the sofa now... This is the piece I practiced my hand quilting on this past summer. Since I love hand-work, I loved making it...
BUT... shortly after we spent several sessions that summer learning to quilt the traditional way, we "accidentally" wandered into our now-favorite LQS, where we quickly signed up for the beginning quilting class, discovered the rotary cutter and "the rest is history..." We still laugh about turning toward each other after that first cut with the rotary and, almost exactly together, exclaiming how wonderful the rotary cutter was...
We both still love hand-work and I'm working on hand-quilting my first big quilt right now... We're taking a hand-turned applique class on the 24th and can hardly wait...
I love reading everyone's posts on this!!!